Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir is the grape that made Burgundy the most studied wine region on earth, and the one that has broken the most hearts trying to repeat the trick elsewhere. It is thin-skinned, tightly clustered and ripens early, which makes it prone to rot, frost damage and sunburn in roughly equal measure. It also mutates readily — Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Meunier are all colour and form mutations of the same variety — giving growers a bewildering number of clones to choose between.

What earns it the obsession is transparency. More than almost any other red grape, Pinot Noir transmits the place it was grown. Two vineyards separated by a footpath on Burgundy's Côte d'Or, planted to the same clone and handled identically in the cellar, will give recognisably different wines year after year. That sensitivity is why Burgundy's vineyard classification is drawn in such fine detail, and why the grape rewards patience from growers willing to work small parcels.

In the glass it is pale for a red — you can usually read text through it — with aromas of red cherry, raspberry and cranberry when young. Tannins are fine and low, acidity is high, and the body is light to medium. With age the fruit recedes and the savoury register arrives: forest floor, mushroom, dried leaves, game and, in older Burgundy, something closer to truffle. Oak is used carefully, since a heavy hand buries the aromatics the grape exists to show.

Beyond Burgundy, Pinot Noir found a second home wherever the growing season is long but cool. Oregon's Willamette Valley, New Zealand's Central Otago, California's Sonoma Coast and Germany's Baden each produce serious examples with their own accent — riper and more overtly fruited in the warmer sites, tauter and more mineral in the marginal ones. It is also, quietly, one of the three principal grapes of Champagne, where it is pressed pale and provides the structure and red-fruit weight beneath the Chardonnay.

It is not a wine for big flavours. Pinot Noir works with food that meets it halfway: duck, mushrooms, roast chicken, salmon, a plate of charcuterie. Served slightly cool, in a wide-bowled glass that gives the aromatics room, it is one of the most versatile reds at any table.